Yesterday's The Oregonian has an article about the incident that took place on SE 82nd Avenue last week in which a man was stabbed and killed by a woman with a history of prostitution arrests. The article goes:
A young woman who was picked up on prostitution-related charges last Wednesday is now behind bars, accused of fatally stabbing a man she said was trying to get her to work for him as a streetwalker on Southeast 82nd Avenue.Police say Donyel Helen Hormats, 19, stabbed Christopher Darrell Richardson, 21, once in the chest shortly after 8 p.m. Friday on Southeast 82nd Avenue near Morrison Street. He died later in the evening at a hospital.Hormats told authorities she was carrying a knife for protection because she had been assaulted the previous night. She now faces one count of murder, and was arraigned in Multnomah County Circuit Court on Monday. In Hormats' booking photo, her right eye is black and blue.Friday night, Richardson flagged down Portland officers after he was stabbed. He was taken to OHSU Hospital, where he died. Hormats was at the scene when police arrived. Investigators suspect she may have acted out of self-defense, but a Multnomah County grand jury will decide whether to issue an indictment when it hears the case later in the week. Hormats is due back in court Aug. 26.Investigators say Richardson either was trying to pimp Hormats, or give her trouble for competing with women he was pimping on the avenue.Hormats had been arrested two nights earlier, at 5:50 p.m. Wednesday at Southeast 84th Avenue and Yamhill Street. She was accused of attempted prostitution and prostitution procurement.Richardson, a Los Angeles native, had prior felony convictions. On June 20, Gresham police stopped him after he allegedly threatened another man with a gun near the MAX platform at Southeast 181st Avenue and Burnside. They seized a .357 revolver from him. Police reports say he had the gun tucked behind his back in his waistband. He was accused of being a felon in possession of a firearm and unlawful use of a firearm.On July 30, he bailed himself out of jail and was on pretrial supervision. He had convictions for third-degree escape, third-degree robbery and second-degree theft.
Some neighbors quickly declared this incident as yet another reason Prostitution Free Zone should be reinstated immediately. But before citing this incident as a poster child for PFZ, we should take Ms. Hormats' story more seriously. She acted in self-defense against a man who pestered her in attempt to pimp her, a man who was known to carry a concealed weapon illegally and was unafraid to pull it out on others. And she stabbed just once--which clearly shows that she was not the aggressor, and that she only did what it took to protest herself. We should be glad that she was not the one to end up dead, and she certainly should not be charged with murder.
Would PFZ have prevented this incident? Probably not. In fact, displacing someone like Ms. Hormats makes them less safe and more vulnerable to violence and exploitation. It also make it much harder for social service agencies to reach out to the people who need it the most.
But there is one thing we can agree with the proponents of PFZ, which is that the current official response to prostitution is indeed inadequate. Ms. Hormats was in police custody just a day before the incident, yet nobody assisted her to be safe from the would-be pimp who won't leave her alone. It's very sad that she had to rely on a knife to protect herself because our communities had abandoned her.
We will keep an eye on this case, and explore what we can do to support Ms. Hormats in her struggle with the criminal justice system. Her next court date is set to August 26th.
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